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Western Digital Corporation and sTec, Inc. announced today that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which sTec, Inc., an early innovator in enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs), will be acquired by HGST, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western Digital. sTec will be acquired for approximately $340 million in cash, which equates to $6.85 per share. This represents approximately $207 million in enterprise value, net of sTec’s cash as of March 31, 2013.
The pending acquisition augments HGST’s existing solid-state storage capabilities, accelerating its ability to expand its participation in the rapidly growing area of enterprise SSDs. HGST remains committed to its highly successful joint development program with Intel® Corp. and will continue to deliver current and future SAS-based SSD products with Intel.
sTec has strong engineering talent and intellectual property that will complement HGST technical expertise and capabilities. HGST will continue to support existing sTec products and collaborate with its customers to understand their future requirements.
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BIWIN, a world-leading expert in the development and manufacture of flash and advanced NAND flash memory, has launched a new business-grade SSD, the C8386, equipped with unique power failure protection technology.
BIWIN’s C8386 SSD offers real-time monitoring through the adoption of a power supply detection chip. The firmware of the SSD will be immediately guarded once the voltage is detected to be lower than 4V. This effectively avoids serious damage caused by an unexpected power loss, such as the disk being unable to be read or a system crash.
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Toshiba’s Storage Products Business Unit of Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the slim, 7mm MQ01ABFH solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) series. Equipped with Toshiba’s NAND flash and available in 500GB1 and 320GB capacities, the MQ01ABFH series is the first Toshiba SSHD drive family in 7 mm. The series continues Toshiba’s legacy of providing world-class storage products, and offers customers a complete lineup of 2.5-inch solid state hybrid drives with the previously announced 1TB and 750GB MQ01ABDH series 9.5mm SSHDs for ultrathin and thin and light notebook PCs, multimedia and gaming applications, and traditional laptop PCs.
Drawing upon its knowledge and experience in NAND flash, Toshiba optimized the NAND flash performance into a tiered-storage approach that uses the speed of the DRAM and NAND components with the high-capacity of rotating media. The SSHD delivers SSD-like performance without dependence on external drivers or assistance from the host system. The PCMark Vantage Average HDD Score, the established industry method for measuring SSHD read/write performance and responsiveness, for the MQ01ABF500H is approximately 20,000, surpassing the 16,000 industry standard result.
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Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the Canvio Slim II Portable Hard Drive. With a capacity of up to 1 TB and measuring only 12.5 mm thick, the Canvio Slim II remains one of the thinnest and smallest portable hard drives available on the market—now with the ability to access and share data straight from the device. This complete external backup and storage solution is ideal for customers that carry an Ultrabook™ or other super-mobile PC.
"The original Canvio Slim was extremely popular—especially with Ultrabooks users due to its incredibly sleek design. This time around, we challenged ourselves with making a great product even better," said Maciek Brzeski, vice president of product marketing and development of branded storage products, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. "We were able to increase the capacity to 1 TB without compromising much on size and added features that allow you to access and share your data from anywhere at any time via internet—making the Canvio Slim II the ultimate mobile storage solution."
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Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash storage solutions, today announces the introduction of the USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk. With sequential read scores of up to 4041 MB/s and sequential write scores of up to 5388 MB/s, the USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk is a speed demon of a drive housed in a sleek aluminum casing. The USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk uses your computer’s free RAM to transfer files at an amazingly quick rate. This USB also transfers the files while you are using the program, cutting down on wait time later.
The USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk is as portable as a regular USB, giving the user the freedom to take their work anywhere. The USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk provides the power of increased productivity through its incredible speed abilities, which can be many times faster than a SSD. This drive is especially suited for creative professionals. The USB 3.0 Express Ram★Disk is an ideal drive for anyone seeking a speedy drive with great performance.
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SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced a significant upgrade to its enterprise software portfolio with a new version of its FlashSoft software for Windows Serve and Linux operating systems. FlashSoft 3.2 server-side solid state caching software complements and enhances the performance of existing applications, and server and storage systems.
Key benefits of FlashSoft 3.2 software include:
- multiple SSD support, with SSD mirroring for “safe write-back” caching;
- support for up to four caches on a single server;
- acceleration of up to 2048 volumes per cache;
- maximum cache size increased to two terabytes per cache; and,
- support for volume-based storage architectures, including direct-attached storage (DAS) and storage area network (SAN) configurations.
“Solid state storage strategies are changing the economics of data management. The challenge, however, is adding enterprise flash technology without major disruptions to ongoing IT operations,” said Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director of Lab Validation Services, The Taneja Group. “SanDisk’s FlashSoft software efficiently integrates solid state cache into servers without changing where data is stored or the features and capabilities of a consolidated storage approach. This ‘disruptionless’ approach dramatically simplifies the introduction of solid state, and allows SanDisk customers to immediately address performance challenges without changing existing storage strategies.”
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Pioneer Japan sent out a press today, announcing its new portable, slot-loading Blu-ray Disc writer, the BDR-XS05J. This USB 3.0 equipped drive is capable of 6x BD-R, 6x BD-R DL, 6x BD-R LTH, 2x BD-RE and 2x BD-RE DL writing speeds and a maximum BD-ROM read speed of 6x. The BDR-XS05J also writes to triple- (100GB) and quad-layer (128GB) BD-R media at 4x and triple-layer (100GB) BD-RE media at 2x.
Along with a customizable, transparent panel, the BDR-XS05J includes features like Pioneer's PureRead2+ technology and noise reducing firmware. It also ships with a software bundle from CyberLink that supports BDXL recording as well as Blu-ray 3D playback. The BDR-XS05J is scheduled to ship in late June and is expected to retail for about 15,000 Yen ($266US).
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ASUSTOR Inc., a leading innovator and provider of network storage solutions, has announced today that all of its NAS products are fully compatible with Seagate’s newly launched range of NAS hard drives. These hard drives come in 2TB, 3TB and 4TB models with their model numbers being ST2000VN000, ST3000VN000 and ST4000VN000. By supporting these hard drives, ASUSTOR is able to give its users greater flexibility and choice when configuring their network attached storage devices.
ASUSTOR NAS are the first NAS devices in the world to be designed entirely around an App-based concept. Built on a stable and high performance hardware platform, ASUSTOR NAS devices provides users with an intuitive UI that closely resembles the simplicity enjoyed on most tablet computers. After installing hard drives onto the NAS device, users will be able to set up their very own personal cloud server in just a few easy steps. Additionally, users can download any NAS Apps of their choice from ASUSTOR’s App Central, expanding functionality and creating a customized device for themselves.
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Patriot, a global pioneer in high-performance memory, NAND flash, storage, and mobile accessories today announces an exclusive partnership with Meteor Entertainment, a leading publisher of online games, to launch a one-of-a-kind Supersonic RAGE XT promotion bundle with Meteor’s online mech action game, HAWKEN. This valued-added bundle pairs the ultra-fast 64GB USB 3.0 Supersonic RAGE XT flash drive with a game changing 7-day HAWKEN Double XP Boost for the extremely popular multiplayer mech combat video game.
Providing the enhanced transfer speeds of USB 3.0 in an extra tough rubberized housing, the Patriot Supersonic Rage XT is the perfect solution for those looking for a compact design that doesn’t compromise performance. The Supersonic Rage XT comes with a custom slide to connect design that provides best in class protection from wear and tear.
HAWKEN is an online action game that allows players to jump into the cockpit of customizable giant mechs and battle it out for online supremacy in a variety of game modes and arenas. This special Double XP Boost pack bundle will grant players the ability to level up faster, unlocking new abilities and technologies for total domination on the battlefield.
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Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry's first PCI-Express (PCIe) solid state drive (SSD) for next-generation ultra-slim notebook PCs.
"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers."
Samsung started providing the new SSD to major notebook PC makers earlier this quarter. The XP941 lineup consists of 512, 256 and 128GB SSDs.
